The hotel where Britten and Pears consummated their relationship

I am in Grand Rapids this week and, over dinner with the conductor David Lockington earlier, I was amazed to discover that it was in this town that the most famous gay musical couple of the 20th century first … well, you know what I mean. Pears wrote to Britten later:

On the way back to my hotel I couldn't resist popping into the lobby of the Amway Grand Plaza, where it all happened, to take this photo.
They were here in 1941 and eventually departed for war-torn Britain with a volume of George Crabbe's poetry in their luggage, including a poem which would become Peter Grimes the opera, and which would end up changing British musical history.